The 2006 Debrief · post-mortem · permanent archive
How did the polling industry do this cycle?
The 2006 industry MAE landed at 5.5pt — graded across 66 historical races with a known outcome — and 36 polls were analyzed across 23 pollsters. Signed bias −1.86pt: pollsters again systematically over-predicted Democrats.
INDUSTRY MAE
5.5pt
vs midterm avg
SIGNED BIAS
−1.86pt
D-leaning
POLLS · POLLSTERS
36
23 firms
RACES SCORED
66
w/ known outcome
Industry mean absolute error · 2002–2006
Per-pollster scorecard · 2006 · sorted by MAE
Signed bias · ±6.5pt
MAE · 0–10.4pt
Biggest-miss races · 2006
| Race | Expected | Actual | Miss | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| us-governor-2006-ny | D+45.00 | D+31.61 | -13.4pt | D-margin overestimate |
| us-governor-2006-ma | D+25.00 | D+20.08 | -4.9pt | D-margin overestimate |
| us-governor-2006-co | D+12.00 | D+16.82 | 4.8pt | D-margin underestimate |
| us-senate-2006-fl | D+26.00 | D+22.20 | -3.8pt | D-margin overestimate |
| us-governor-2006-oh | D+25.00 | D+23.89 | -1.1pt | D-margin overestimate |
| us-governor-2006-or | D+7.00 | D+7.98 | 1.0pt | D-margin underestimate |
| us-senate-2006-me | R+53.00 | R+53.42 | -0.4pt | R-margin underestimate |
| us-senate-2006-nv | R+14.00 | R+14.37 | -0.4pt | R-margin underestimate |